Photovoltaics have gained popularity in recent years. One reason has been a reduction in the cost and complexity of photovoltaic (PV) or solar mounting systems. Traditionally, residential solar was installed by first laying out a grid of rows and/or columns of rails on the roof mounting plane, and then attaching solar panels to those rails with brackets or clamps. Eventually, pioneers in the solar industry realized that the frames of solar modules themselves are rigid enough to function as the rails, and therefore, rail-based systems are unnecessarily redundant. This led to the proliferation of so-called rail-free mounting systems, a vast improvement over traditional mounting systems. One such rail-free mounting system is that manufactured and sold by SolarCity Corp. of San Mateo, Calif.
Rail-free mounting systems often utilize a combination of mounting feet and interlocks. Mounting feet, sometimes called leveling feet, are roof-penetrating support structures that are permanently attached to the roof surface and include an upward projecting leg that in turn is attached to and/or supports a PV module frame connector that connects to the frames of two or more adjacent photovoltaic modules, near their intersection in the array, and supports them above the roof surface. Interlocks are coupling devices that interconnect either two or four photovoltaic modules at the intersection of their respective adjacent corners such that in combination with the mounting feet, they convert the array of individual modules into a unitary, interconnected array. This helps to distribute forces across the array.
When installing a PV array using a rail-free mounting system, physical conflicts between interlocks and mounting feet may arise. This happens because the location of the former is dictated by the location of the intersection of two adjacent modules while the location of the latter is constrained by the position of the roof rafters under the roof. The location of rafters is often unknown when the array layout is being designed. As a result, there is very little flexibility in the location of either interlocks or mounting feet—interlocks must span the gap between adjacent modules and mounting feet must penetrate the roof at the center of a 2-inch wide roof rafter. Therefore, it is possible that both of these devices will need to occupy the same physical space. When this happens, the installer is often forced to omit one or the other of these devices from the installation, which can make the array less secure than it would otherwise be.
Accordingly, there is a need for a rail-free mounting component that reduces, and ideally eliminates, the occurrence of such conflicts.